A DUO hoping to breathe life back into Braintree High Street will reopen a much-loved venue tonight.

Stuart Buckley and Bernie Smith, who run the Boars Head pub on Braintree High Street, have taken on Baileys Bar just down the road.

The venue closed in 2014 and was a popular nightlife spot in Braintree.

Mr Buckley said: “We looked at it some time ago and we sort of decided the time wasn’t right.

“The landlord came and spoke to us recently, asked us to run it for him and this time we decided to say yes because we feel the town needs it.

“He is willing to invest in the building, he is keen to see it working again and he has made it quite an easy decision for us.”

The venue was run by Mr Smith and closed when people "stopped coming into the town."

He said: “People want it back and you can tell that just by looking at the Facebook page, within a couple of hours of us announcing it there were 100 likes and 37 shares of the post.

"Now we are hoping to give people a choice again.”

Initially the bar will be open on Friday and Saturday nights and available for hire for events at other times.

Mr Buckley feels it will provide a welcome boost to Braintree’s night time economy.

He said: “We have got some ideas of things we might do in the future but at the moment we are primarily focusing on the Saturday night trade – we are more interested in making it work for the long-term.

“We punch above our weight at the Boars Head and we are relatively busy even when Braintree is quiet, but by having another bar on the High Street it will draw more people here.”